2017 Barbara S. Goodman Scientific Awards and Donor Recognition Evening
Tuesday, September 12, 2017The Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street
New York CityNo solicitation of funds.

ICRF guests will have exclusive access to this extraordinary exhibit in

the Museum of the City of New York at the Barbara S. Goodman

Annual Scientific Awards & Donor Recognition Evening.

Take a formal tour or explore on your own.

What made New York New York? Follow the story of the city’s rise from a striving Dutch village to today’s “Capital of the World,” and consider its future in our changing world.

Framed around the key themes of money, density, diversity, and creativity, New York City’s history and future come alive in this first-of-its-kind exhibition, through the stories of innovation, energy, struggle, and the vision of generations of immigrants, politicians, tycoons, dreamers, master builders, and ordinary New Yorkers.

Through almost 450 historic objects and images, many from the Museum’s rich collection, as well as contemporary video, photography, and interactive digital experiences, we welcome you to dive deep into the city’s past and create your own visions for its future.

PORT CITY – In this introductory gallery, travel back to the time of Henry Hudson’s voyage into New York Harbor and follow the story of the city as it grew into the nation’s economic and cultural capital, on the shores of the Western Hemisphere’s busiest harbor.

Learn about more than 200 key objects and images from this period, including a ceremonial club from the Native people of the area; a slice of a wooden pipe that formed the original water system of the city; and William M. “Boss” Tweed’s gold tiger-headed cane.

Alongside these striking, one-of-a-kind artifacts, experience innovative interactive installations where you’ll “meet” New Yorkers of the past – from Henry Hudson and Alexander Hamilton to Chinatown pioneer Wong Chin Foo and anarchist Emma Goldman. Discover what has changed and what has stayed the same as you take in digital projections of historic New York streetscapes that fade into contemporary views of the same scenes, created by New York photographer Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao.

WORLD CITY –In the exhibition’s second gallery, witness the dizzying evolution of New York as it grew into the modern global metropolis we know today. During the 20th century, cycles of financial growth and crisis continually reshaped the city’s economic, cultural, and social life, as did the influx of new waves of people from across the country and around the world. Steep challenges – extreme poverty and urban crowding, the Great Depression, the fiscal and urban crises of the postwar era, crumbling infrastructure and rising prices, and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 – tested and ultimately affirmed the creativity and resilience of the residents of a teeming metropolis that had become the most influential city in the world.

Explore nearly 300 historic objects and images and a central video installation immersing visitors in the rhythms and dynamism of the 20th century city through vivid, overlapping moving pictures. At a touchscreen station, you’ll find the moving silhouettes of notable people who embody the exhibition’s themes of money, density, diversity and creativity, ranging from industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to music entrepreneur Jay-Z.

FUTURE CITY LAB – In this cutting-edge interactive space, explore five central challenges and opportunities that New York will face in coming generations:

Making a Living: What can we do to provide economic opportunities for the next generation?

Living Together: How can we foster a more inclusive city?

Housing a Growing Population: How can we meet the housing needs of New Yorkers?

Living with Nature: How can New York City enhance its natural environment and cope with climate change?

Getting Around: How can we make it easier for people to get into and around the city?

The Future City Lab gives you the opportunity to interact with these issues, to imagine the city’s future by designing a street, a building, and a park, and to discover ways of addressing the challenges, drawing ideas from cities around the world. Also on view are photographs by Joseph Michael Lopez, who depicts how the challenges we face are manifested in 20 different neighborhoods, short films that portray the lives of a wide range of New Yorkers, and a newly commissioned work by video artist Neil Goldberg featuring interviews with New Yorkers on their fears and hopes for the city’s future.

The gallery is dedicated to the memory of curator Hilary Ballon (1956-2017).